TedEd-24

How Cars Went From
Boxy to Curvy

If you look at cars from the 1970s and cars from the 1990s, there’s really one big difference in theirdesigns. The ones from the 70s are boxy, and the ones from the 90s are curvy. For some car
models, you can even tell the exact year when that change happened. Just look at this commercial
for the Buick LeSabre, showing the 1991 model — and then the 1992 model. See the curves? Let’swatch that again. ‘91 is boxy, sharp edges. ‘92? Smooth and round. Since then, cars have become
curvier and curvier. So how did this happen? When manufacturers started making curvy cars in the90s, it wasn’t a totally new concept. Back in the 1930s, streamliners like this Chrysler Airflow used
this sleek design to reduce wind resistance. But as the 50s and 60s rolled around, American
streamliners stopped selling well — they were outsold by bigger, boxier cars. Gas prices were on
fairly steady decline at this point, so streamlining for fuel efficiency was less of a concern.

TedEd-24

How Cars Went From
Boxy to Curvy

Well into the 1970s, just about every car made in America had sharp edges and very few curves.
They were basically designed as a series of three boxes — the hood, the cabin, and the trunk. Thatmodel worked really well in the US market. But in Europe, fuel was always more expensive. In the60s, a gallon of gas in France cost a whopping 73.1 cents while it was just 31 cents in the US. So
European designers started experimenting with more aerodynamic designs to help cars move moreeasily so they’d waste less gas. Automakers like Porsche, BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz — they allstarted rolling out car models that had curved exteriors. Eventually American automakers started tocopy the European aerodynamic look to try to attract upscale consumers. The mass market was adifferent picture. In Europe, a designer named Uwe Bahnsen was the first person to push for acurved design for the average driver, and he did that with the 1982 Ford Sierra. It was curvier than
any car in its class at the time. But critics just laughed at it. And it didn't sell very well at first. It was
nicknamed the “jelly mould” because of how much it looked like the kind of circular shape you’dmake JELL-O with. But one of the designers from that European Ford design team — this guy, JackTelnack — took over the US design team in 1980.
American gas prices at this point were skyrocketing due to conflict in the middle east. So Telnack
brought wind tunnel testing into the design process. He first did that with the 1983 Ford Thunderbird.
But the real breakthrough came a few years later: "The result was the groundbreaking 1986 Ford
Taurus." It might not look that groundbreaking now, but this style was revolutionary at the time. Itwas a mass market car with curvy edges — and people liked it. “Taurus! Now a North American carwith a shape and a feel we’ve never seen before… Taurus for us!” They used it in RoboCop as thecar of the future. The sales basically saved Ford, which had really been struggling at the time, and it
inspired a whole wave of copycat curvy cars. And streamlining became even more popular because
manufacturers were facing new fuel economy regulations in the US. Starting in 1978, the average

TedEd-24How Cars Went From
Boxy to Curvy

fuel efficiency of each manufacturer’s passenger cars had to meet higher and higher levels.
According to one Ford designer, aerodynamic design was a much more affordable way to boost
efficiency than doing engineering work under the hood. The rise of computer modelling in the 80s
also made it easier for car makers to design and manufacture curved lines.
All these years later, the influence on today’s cars is pretty clear. Even the models that we criticize
for being ridiculously boxy these days — like the Scion xB — are actually really round. And if ourmodern day sci-fi movies have anything to say about it, that won’t be changing anytime soon.